Sunday, 20 September 2015

Pleasantly surprised this morning to find out it's the 10th anniversary of one of my all time favourite albums from one of my all time favourite underrated bands: Broadcast's Tender Buttons. It's a very special album indeed, it's much more electronic focused than all their previous efforts, no doubt influenced by the departure of most of the bandmates, leaving Tender Buttons to be made with a skeleton crew of James Cargill and Trish Keenan.

There's plenty of albums that open strongly, but no matter how many times I look over Buttons' tracklist, I'm hard pressed to find a weak link throughout. The actual introduction track I Found The F does it's job perfectly, showing off the new electronic undercurrent in spectacular fashion.

It's not long before Broadcast's previous psychedelic-influenced streak begins to show through though with Black Cat. One of the tracks that were chosen for release from the album, not sure that it's the perfect choice for that given some of the later ones, but it is still fine.

The title track of the LP is very different from all we've heard so far, it plays out almost like a normal Broadcast song before the electronic accompaniment of this album. The real highlight here is the reason for the album's name: it takes it' title from a series of poems by Gertrude Stein which revolve around the rhythm of the words rather than traditional rhymes, which is also the case for some songs on the LP that Keenan delivers absolutely flawlessly, especially here.

I end the post on a rather significant point. America's Boy is the reason I discovered Broadcast many years ago on some music blog, and to this day I fall in love with it again when I hear that intro. I think it is one of the best constructed tracks here, and is also pretty good introduction to the overall sound on offer, showcasing the new and unique electronic aspects as well as Keenan herself in top form.

Broadcast remain one of my all time favourites, and even though their output was limited there hasn't been a single release of theirs that I haven't enjoyed. Unfortunately that limited list of releases will not be getting bigger anytime soon, owing to Trish Keenan's death in 2011. James Cargill has said he has some unreleased Broadcast material recorded before her death that he was preparing for release but there's been no developments on that front in some time. But until them I more than content with their discography up to now, and I hope the wait will not be much longer if this has been your introduction to them.

Saturday, 28 March 2015

After spending the last couple of days wrestling with a website that seems to hate chrome with a passion, I should really take the weekend off, but I can' be doing that because I have deadlines to meet so that's gone out of the window. Luckily I've had time between renders to catch up on what's been happening out in the music world, specifically with my long time label romance Warp.

New Squarepusher first! From upcoming LP Damogen Furies which has killer artwork. Given his most recent albums I wasn't sure what to expect. Not in a bad way mind, just not sure what style he'd be doing this time. I was expecting to hear some more of the Z-Machines in there but they aren't on this track at least. It starts off pretty Squarepusher-esque but some synths come in later which give me a lick or two of Glass Swords-era Rustie. And I'm perfectly fine with that.

The new HudMo's been blowing up a ton too. I'll be honest and say that I've never been a fan of his trap direction (but I did like 100HM so there's that), but that intro had me VERY interested. I'm diggin' this track a ton, Irfane who you may recognise from Breakbot's releases lends his talents to the track and makes a treat to listen to.

Thursday, 29 January 2015

Anyone who's read for a while will know I have a disposition towards tech, but more recently I've been submerging myself in my faveourite aesthetic of all time, Cyberpunk. It's not quite as nerdy as Steampunk, and with better books and movies. Ever watched Blade Runner and dug the hell out of the setting? Cyberpunk may just be the ticket for you, here's a playlist I've been curating for tunes that fit into this category, check 'em out while you go hacking or whatever it is Cyberpunks do these days.